Conventional bearings that are utilized, for example, to provide relative rotational movement between two or more objects, are typically fabricated from materials having properties suitable to withstand stresses imposed on the bearing in a desired application. Materials exhibiting high hardness and/or toughness are conventionally used to fabricate bearings including steel, steel alloys and monolithic ceramic materials. However, the inventors have observed that in applications where components of the bearings are exposed to increased stresses (e.g., high contact stresses), for example, when used in rotational equipment (such as pumps and compressors), as well as in aircraft or aerospace applications, bearings made from conventional materials display unacceptable amounts of deformation and/or degradation, thereby resulting in rapid or premature failure modes for the bearing.
High-strength and high-performance conventional bearings are also known, which are bearings that are made from high density or high performance versions of the same materials, which can provide increased strength for resisting deformation and can increase the useful life of the bearings. However, these high-performance/high-strength versions have increased weight and increased costs compared with bearings made from standard materials. Thus, conventional bearings made from enhanced strength or wear resistant materials fail to provide a good solution for overcoming the weaknesses of standard conventional bearings.
Conventional bearings have also been formed from monolithic ceramic, ceramic composite or hybrid ceramic materials. Such bearings use technical, specialized or advanced ceramics materials that are specially tailored for their uses, such as to be biocompatible or food compatible for biological or food processing uses, to be non-magnetic or non-conductive for electronics uses, or to have certain chemical or physical properties. For instance, materials for these conventional bearings are tailored to provide high heat resistance or corrosion resistance for some applications, and can be configured to have high flexural strength and durability.
These conventional monolithic specialty-material bearings are highly configurable and can provide a wide range of diverse properties that are appropriate for various applications and uses. However, they are formed from uniform, monolithic configurations of these specialty materials and lack structural reinforcements such as reinforcing fibers, fabrics or integrated support features. As such, these conventional monolithic specialty-material bearings nonetheless fail to overcome the weaknesses of other conventional bearings with respect to structural strength, deformation resistance and durability.
Accordingly, there remains a need for improved bearings having enhanced structural integrity and high resistance to deformation, thermal shocks and fractures—especially in comparison with monolithic ceramic-type bearings. Further, there remains a need for relatively lightweight bearings and bearings that can provide such benefits without significantly increasing the weight of the bearings.